In the early 1990s, the world fell in love with the adorable Mara Wilson, the child actor known for playing the precocious little girl in family classics like Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th Street.<\/p>\n
The young star, who turned 37 on July 24, seemed poised for success but as she grew older, she stopped being \u201ccute\u201d and disappeared from the big screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cHollywood was burned out on me,\u201d she says, adding that \u201cif you\u2019re not cute anymore, if you\u2019re not beautiful, then you are worthless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keep reading to learn what happened to Wilson!<\/p>\n
In 1993, five-year-old Mara Wilson stole the hearts of millions of fans when she starred as Robin Williams\u2019 youngest child in Mrs. Doubtfire.<\/p>\n
The California-born star had previously appeared in commercials when she received the invitation to star in one of the biggest-grossing comedies in Hollywood history.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents were proud, but they kept me grounded. If I ever said something like, \u2018I\u2019m the greatest!\u2019 my mother would remind me, \u2018You\u2019re just an actor. You\u2019re just a kid,\u2019\u201d Wilson, now 37, said.<\/p>\n
After her big screen debut, she won the role of Susan Walker \u2013 the same role played by Natalie Wood in 1947 \u2013 in 1994\u2019s Miracle on 34th Street.<\/p>\n
In an essay for the Guardian, Wilson writes of her audition, \u201cI read my lines for the production team and told them I didn\u2019t believe in Santa Claus.\u201d Referencing the Oscar-winning actor who played her mom in Mrs. Doubtfire, she continues, \u201cbut I did believe in the tooth fairy and had named mine after Sally Field.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Most unhappy\u2019
\nNext, Wilson played the magical girl in 1996\u2019s Matilda, starring alongside Danny DeVito and his real-life wife Rhea Perlman.<\/p>\n
It was also the same year her mother, Suzie, lost her battle with breast cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really know who I was\u2026There was who I was before that, and who I was after that. She was like this omnipresent thing in my life,\u201d Wilson says of the deep grief she experienced after losing her mother. She adds, \u201cI found it kind of overwhelming. Most of the time, I just wanted to be a normal kid, especially after my mother died.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young girl was exhausted and when she was \u201cvery famous,\u201d she says she \u201cwas the most unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she was 11, she begrudgingly played her last major role in the 2000 fantasy adventure film Thomas and the Magic Railroad. \u201cThe characters were too young. At 11, I had a visceral reaction to [the] script\u2026Ugh, I thought. How cute,\u201d she tells the Guardian.<\/p>\n
\u2018Burned out\u2019
\nBut her exit from Hollywood wasn\u2019t only her decision.<\/p>\n
As a young teenager, the roles weren\u2019t coming in for Wilson, who was going through puberty and outgrowing the \u201ccute.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was \u201cjust another weird, nerdy, loud girl with bad teeth and bad hair, whose bra strap was always showing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 13, no one had called me cute or mentioned the way I looked in years, at least not in a positive way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Wilson was forced to deal with the pressures of fame and the challenges of transitioning to adulthood in the public eye. Her changing image had a profound effect on her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had this Hollywood idea that if you\u2019re not cute anymore, if you\u2019re not beautiful, then you are worthless. Because I directly tied that to the demise of my career. Even though I was sort of burned out on it, and Hollywood was burned out on me, it still doesn\u2019t feel good to be rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson, now a writer, authored her first book \u201cWhere Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame,\u201d in 2016.<\/p>\n
The book discusses \u201ceverything from what she learned about sex on the set of Melrose Place, to discovering in adolescence that she was no longer \u2018cute\u2019 enough for Hollywood, these essays chart her journey from accidental fame to relative (but happy) obscurity.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also wrote \u201cGood Girls Don\u2019t\u201d a memoir that examines her life as a child actor living up to expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing cute just made me miserable,\u201d she writes in her essay for the Guardian. \u201cI had always thought it would be me giving up acting, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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